Digital Reach

[

] 201

PEN

ACCESSIBLE STANDARDS

are a vital constituent of the

Information Society. OASIS, the Organization for the

Advancement of Structured Information Standards, is a

not-for-profit international consortium for the development,

convergence and implementation of cross-sectoral e-business stan-

dards. Based in Boston, USA, OASIS currently comprises 5 000

participants in 100 countries. The consortium is a party to the

United Nations Memorandum of Understanding for Electronic

Business (UNECE-ITU-IEC-ISO) and a partner of the UN Centre

for Trade Facilitation and e-business (UN/CEFACT) based in

Geneva, Switzerland. OASIS participated in the first phase of WSIS

2003 in Geneva and looks forward to doing so in 2005 in Tunis.

Until now, industry-specific e-business vocabularies have been

developed using the common eXtensible Markup Language

(XML) standard, but, all too often, most have been built within

specific industries in a stove-pipe fashion that limits many

companies’ use of the Internet for e-business. The lack of a

unified approach has become a barrier for most companies to

achieve service expansion benefits into cross-sectoral lines of

business and for governments that seek more integrated solu-

tions. This article describes the problem and presents some

solutions for building the next generation of open standards to

enable interoperability at the business layer.

The World Summit on the Information Society in 2005 will

confirm the commitment of the international community to

open, accessible standards for information and communication

technologies. OASIS is the principal industry body with a

mission to deliver cross-sectoral solutions for the next genera-

tion of e-business standards.

The WSIS process has done much to stimulate the more rapid

implementation of ICT in all aspects of business, government

and increasingly in civil society throughout the world. As tech-

niques and applications for e-business, e-commerce and

e-government have proliferated during the last three years, there

have been increasing efforts to promote the full participation of

all countries and economic groupings into global digital

networks which underpin the reality of globalization.

What’s the problem?

However, significant business problems are occurring in those

companies that are implementing the various e-business XML-

based vocabulary standards developed by many of the industry

associations. Businesses typically find themselves unable to

utilize vertical industry B2B vocabulary standards directly out

of the box, and experience further difficulty leveraging multiple

vertical industry standards and specifications due to differences

in both methodology/design and actual content. Interoperability

at the business layer continues to be challenging using a single

vertical industry’s standards, let alone across industries.

The lack of a unified approach has become a significant barrier

to achieving service expansion benefits into cross-sectoral lines

of business. This is particularly important as more and more

businesses and governments implement applications that

connect their systems and services to the Internet, and there is

a growing awareness of how much more interconnected our

businesses are becoming.

Those businesses that have moved beyond simply using the

web to promote and sell products and services and which are

now working on using the Internet to integrate their operations

Advancing open standards for

the Information Society

Patrick J. Gannon, President & CEO, Organization for the

Advancement of Structured Information Standards

Patrick J. Gannon, President & CEO, OASIS